Earthrise: The photo of Earth taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts as they came around the far side of the Moon and saw the Earth rise over the Moon's horizon. The three Apollo 8 astronauts were the first human beings to leave the relative safety of low-Earth orbit, and that famous photo triggered nothing less than a spiritual yearning in many of the people who saw it. It was an awe-inspiring and beautiful photo. I would call it sublime. Some people argue it helped to create the entire environmental movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Some recent reading reminded me, by the way, of just how RISKY that Apollo 8 mission was. Can you imagine how DEPRESSING it would have been, for America and indeed the entire world, if something had gone terribly wrong on that mission, and we had lost those three astronauts, maybe out near the moon, on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day, in 1968, a year that had already been marked and marred by several tragic assassinations in America, riots in many of our big cities, an escalating and increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam?

For some people, that Apollo 8 mission that circumnavigated the Moon in preparation for our later landings, somehow SALVAGED the year 1968.

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